furnace/doc/7-systems/es5506.md

Ensoniq ES5506 (OTTO)

sample-based synthesis chip used in a bunch of Taito arcade machines and PC sound cards like Soundscape Elite. a variant of it was the heart of the well-known Gravis Ultrasound.

it has a whopping 32 channels of 16-bit PCM and:

• real time digital filters
• linear interpolation
• loop start and stop positions for each voice (bidirectional and reverse looping)
• internal volume multiplication and stereo panning
• hardware support for short envelopes

effects

• 11xx: set filter mode. values are 0 through 3.
• 120x: set pause (bit 0). pauses the sample until the bit is unset; it will then resume where it left off.
• 14xx: set filter coefficient K1 low byte.
• 15xx: set filter coefficient K1 high byte.
• 16xx: set filter coefficient K2 low byte.
• 17xx: set filter coefficient K2 high byte.
• 18xx: set filter coefficient K1 slide up.
• 19xx: set filter coefficient K1 slide down.
• 1Axx: set filter coefficient K2 slide up.
• 1Bxx: set filter coefficient K2 slide down.
• 20xx: set envelope count.
• 22xx: set envelope left volume ramp.
• 23xx: set envelope right volume ramp.
• 24xx: set envelope filter coefficient K1 ramp.
• 25xx: set envelope filter coefficient K1 ramp (slower).
• 26xx: set envelope filter coefficient K2 ramp.
• 27xx: set envelope filter coefficient K2 ramp (slower).
• 3xxx: set coarse filter coefficient K1.
• 4xxx: set coarse filter coefficient K2.
• 81xx: set panning (left channel).
• 82xx: set panning (right channel).
• 88xx: set panning (rear channels).
• 89xx: set panning (rear left channel).
• 8Axx: set panning (rear right channel).
• 9xxx: set sample offset.
  • resets sample position to xxx * 0x100.
• DFxx: set sample playback direction.

info

this chip uses the ES5506 instrument editor.

sample memory is split into 2MB banks, making the maximum sample length 2097024 bytes.

chip config

the following options are available in the Chip Manager window:

• Initial channel limit: sets how many channels are available for use. if reduced, output rate increases.
• Volume scale: allows you to lower the overall volume to prevent clipping/distortion when using too many channels.
• Amiga channel volumes: makes volume linear, from 0 to 64 (40 in hex). used in S3M, XM and IT import.
• Amiga-like pitch: pretends to be an Amiga, with periodic slides. used in S3M, XM and IT import (the latter two when linear slides are disabled).
  • only effective when pitch linearity is None.